Up The Hill Backwards
by h0bbes
Summary: Being that of the culmination and last great windup of one Gene Hunt, DCI.
1. I

_**Many thanks to those whom sat through and listened to me whine and putter about with this idea, and continue to indulge and assist in my writing. I don't own Ashes to Ashes, etc etc. This is merely a band-aid on my poor, broken heart. Major Spoilers for the series finale and perhaps with a healthy dose of creative licence as well. I apologise in advance for any mistakes made, they are my own as I stumble through this unbeta'd. Reviews are appreciated and very much adored. Thank you.**_

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_"And as we sit here alone_  
_Looking for a reason to go on_  
_It's so clear that all we have now_  
_Are our thoughts of yesterday" – Strawberry Switchblade_

**_I._**

He was falling apart. Alex let her wine go warm in its glass, untouched on the bar counter as she watched the old television set. 1985 crawled on but that lonely, solitary man sat there with his scotch and those stupid boots up on the worn woodwork as he pretended to read his reports in between attempts to nod off peacefully at his desk, timeless. Alex watched on. And on.

The Railway Arms bustled around her – and then it didn't. Quiet in the evenings, or what she considered the evenings, when people where elsewhere. There was a party going on in the back, a group celebrating a birthday, or some sort of needless anniversary; empty congratulations passed all around and she just stared up at the telly that was on its last legs and not quite ready to give up the ghost.

How familiar that was. The derisive snort that escaped was the first noise she'd made in an hour and it signals Nelson at the other end of the bar, who actually stops his chat up with the blonde bird from the party of six at the back to stand in front of her. He'd whisked the full glass away and was pulling a pint then, set it down with a hopeful expression. "Not tonight, Nelson. Please." She begged off. They'd had this chat too many times for her to count.

_Why the long face?_

Heaven knows she's miserable now, and that upset laugh that left a bad taste in her mouth was back; Alex seemed content to trace the condensation on the glass rather than actually look at him. "Cheer up, Alex," Nelson's swaying Jamaican warms her enough to reach out and sip at the pint. That's the thing though, and they both know it: she doesn't want to cheer up. She's not ready for it.

Not just yet.

Time doesn't matter in the Railway Arms so they let Alex have her sulk for as long as she likes. She keeps her days looking in on Gene Hunt's purgatory, and longing. Not healthy, said Sam. Worrisome, said Shaz. Just plain weird, grumbled Ray. But there was a disconnect, Alex knew. They'd all had so long to come to terms with themselves. She was pushed through the door, the memory of his lips and that little brave faced smile. _Goodbye, Guv._

She'd expected him to follow through. If not maybe the first night, then the next.

Alex had seen the way he tucked his service number into his pocket. So much hope she held and yet Gene would march and stomp and yell and never bust through the right set of doors.

A cloying feeling, being trapped from something she wanted for so long. Fickle it was too. _I just want to go home. I want to see my little girl. I want to be there when she blows out the candles._ She traced a sticky circle into the woodwork while the party in the back fired up the jukebox.

"Alex."

She looked up. Nelson was there again, looking expectant. "Oh. Right." She shoved her hand in one pocket, hunting for change. In heaven apparently, there were no bar tabs. "No, Alex." Quick one, that Nelson. One minute he was barman and the next he's sat beside her, one hand on her arm pulling her hand out of her pocket to clasp it between his hands. "Patience is a virtue."

"And a watched pot never boils. Are you going to tell me to bugger off and stop worrying about it?" Alex wouldn't blame him, truly. She knew he only kept that ruddy thing for her sake. All accommodation had its limits. Even in the afterlife.

Nelson, to his never ending credit, laughs for her. "That's not what I'm saying." Gone was the dulcet Jamaican; he spoke softly, seriously. "Everyone's time comes. Some people just take a little longer." Alex followed his eyes.

Elsewhere, Gene has stumbled up and into his coat, dragging the bottle of scotch with him, leaving the paperwork. The checker board lights flickered off a moment. Funny how they did that and no one ever seemed to notice before. Never anything good on. "How much longer is a little longer?" Alex is weary, suddenly, drained of all energy and desire to play Nelson's head games.

"Not much."

"What?"

Smiling a big smile Nelson just shrugged and rolled away off the adjacent stool, moving fast away from Alex, seamlessly immersing himself into the group at the back, leaving her to her sweating pint. She's a big girl, so she takes it in stride. A hearty gulp enough to sting, and she can pretend for a moment that she's drowning in the foam as she's left all alone. No one at the bar but the dark telly and her.

Only when Alex looks around at it, it's not dark.

He's staring at her. Or a mirror. Yes, it's definitely a mirror that he's looking at but he's also looking at her, with those piercing eyes. She goes cold then. Gene, so very far away sighs at his own reflection.

_Alex._

There is a shattering noise, the exact sound a half empty pint makes when it hits the floor. Glass everywhere, Alex's feet are soaked, but that doesn't seem to matter because…because…well he hadn't quite said her name. Didn't mouth it. But she'd heard it. Clear as day. Calling.

She broke for the door, vaguely recognizing Nelson calling after her.

"Alex, you can't!" No false accents here. He's deadly serious. "Nothing good comes from meddling!"

The Railway Arms is quiet on the outside, tucked away in the corner of a dark street in SoHo. No one followed. Alex Drake, shivering, walked down the street and around the corner, disappearing into the September evening.


	2. II

_**II.**_

Harrow Hill was no stranger to crime, and not a soul was lurking about come seven that morning, where two men and a dark blue dark broke the green-grey pattern of concrete that covered most of the estate, hovering over the hunched body of one Joel Abbot, deceased.

DS Garrett whipped his ugly olive pea coat behind him as he squat down in front of Abbot, looking profoundly too pleased with himself. "Dangerous business walking out your door, isn't it? Or something..." he flicked the butt of his cigarette away where it rolled into a grimy puddle and fizzled out.

_Ponce_. Gene stubbed out his own cigarette and frowned at the rest of Abbot, currently smeared against the brickwork. "What do you think they'd call this, then?" Garrett referred to the spatter on the grotty tower wall, framing his fingers into a square.

"Homicide," said Hunt who was in no mood for trifling. Ruddy Joel Abbot and his limp dicked antics had dragged Gene out of bed far too early and it served the prick right for getting his head blown off. "Where is that bloody forensics twat?"

"On his way. Radio'd earlier, some sort of traffic turn around. You were having a chat with the neighbors." Garrett produced a notebook from the back pocket of his jeans, flipping passed the statement the first responding PC had given them, a shaken lad who'd gone to get some air or vomit or both. Left them with the dirty work he had.

Not much chatting had happened as it were. Mostly because it was seven in the morning and no one was eager to talk to the police knocking down their doors. Old ladies in curlers. Men in stained, worn through wife beaters. A hungover transvestite in nothing more than a silk nighty. _I ain't seen nothing. What sort of fuckin' time do you call this?_ More or less polite the inhabitants of Harrow Hill. Less, mostly.

"Need I inquire if our esteemed Inspector has phoned home then, since you seem to be the only one with answers today, Thaddeus?" Gene felt anger starting to brew, patting his pockets for stray fags. Too damn early.

Garrett shifted uncomfortably from the attention, tapping his pencil against the wall. "I thought he was with you, Guv. It's just been me and Marvin here."

"Abbot." Gene corrected.

"No no. 'My god, I shot Marvin in the face!' Oh never mind…his Royal Highness probably took the high road and is eating brekkie with some pensioner as we speak."

"Right_._ You stay here Miss Marple, while I go fetch old snake oil." Garrett's small affirmation was eaten by the violent breeze, bringing the smell of landfill to the Shadwell estate. Trudging around the back ways Gene climbed up the old piss stained steps, grumbling at the dull ache in his knee. _Getting too old for this shit._

Like babysitting a bunch of incompetent over-grown children it felt like most days; fumbling with their notebooks and their tape recorders and their yellow tape. Standing at the helm had begun to make him feel like bleeding Mother Goose with her pansy nursery rhymes, ready to tuck their shirt tails in and swat them on the behind.

"Royle!" He called up the stairwell. "Get your useless arse back down here!"

No answer, but he'd expected that. _Idiot_. If you really wanted anything done you had to do it yourself.

From several flights up there was a clang and the whistle of something being thrown down. Side stepping, Gene glared at the backpack, face red as a tomato. Someone was about to be very intimately aquainted with his size nines.

"Piss off, copper!" could be heard from the fourth floor, followed shortly by "Oh no you don't—Guv!"

Gene began to run up, taking three at a time, coming face to face with a spotty boy with greased back hair. "Oh _shit_."

"You got that right, son." And Gene lunged, and received a swift shoe to the chest. The kid had jumped, used him as a springboard and jumped down a whole flight, grabbed his bag, and kept running. Shit.

"Guv are you alright?" Royle was there, pulling him up by the arm, a long, dark bruise starting to form on the Inspector's face, right along the pronounced line of his cheekbones. "Are you waiting for an invitation, after him you useless prig!"

And just like that he was off, like a gazelle. The little bastard runner, and they all did. Hell to do in boots. _Bolly did it in stilletos._ That was a whole different paint in his chest as he jogged after them. Royle had disappeared around the corner of a tall grafitti'd wall that began a nest of back alleys and old, narrow roads. Claustrophobic it was, bobbing around the odd parked car, running down one way that was narrow enough that he could touch either wall if he'd bothered to put his arms out. The perfect hiding place for scum. If Royle lost the little dickhead, he'd string him up so high the Flying Squad would be begging to use him as a look out.

Gene had taken a wrong corner and lost them, somewhere. Not even the slap of feet on concrete, he stood at a dead end, brick wall laid over with outdated posters for underground concerts and rude children's scribbles on council notices. And not head nor tail of anything else. "Oh Christ."

Someone ran behind him.

Gene spun on his heel, rounding after the hollow sound of…those were definitely heels. "Oi!" He called after his dodgy phantom. Nothing, not a peep. Had he imagined it?

"Guv!"

Royle had heard him. Coming in the opposite direction. Gene glared at the dark end of the back alley, Finding Royle in the midst of pulling out his hair, his cheeks now red as cherries and half swollen making him look rather lopsided. "Did you see him?"

"No. You lost him you pansy-arsed twat!"

"Greasy bastard." Royle grumbled, not put off by Hunt's ill will but his own short comings. "I'll get him, I'll get him."

A ways over someone was making an awful lot of noise taking out their trash. Ears pricked to the sound the detectives darted again, just in time to see their culprit shimmying over the brick wall, flipping them off as they did so. It was like navigating a rusty children's playground. The kid was halfway down the other way when they popped their heads around, and stopped, turning to them. The little fucker saluted and made to run off into oblivion along the just waking shitty streets of Harrow Hill.

Or he might have had someone not knocked him over and sat on him.

"Who that fuck is…" Royle muttered under his breath and for one Gene had to agree. "It's alright!" The bloke (no boy. He was a boy, too Christ on a bike) was all geled hair and elbow patches, like he'd borrowed his old man's suit to play copper. For that's what he was doing wasn't he and Gene felt a rock roll around in his stomach, glaring at the glint of metal from the warrant card produced from the boy's pocket.

"I'm a copper!"

"The hell you are."

"DC Stirling."

Hunt frowned. That name rang a bell, a very small one. He'd forgotten something very vital. What was it? The name…the nameplate sitting on the empty desk, arrived yesterday in the post. "_You're_ the new Constable." It was a glowering accusation and to his credit the lad looked rather sheepish. "Yes? Yes. I am! Are you DCI Hunt?"

"You're late, Constable." Gene slid back down the wall, stepping down off the trash cans.

"You're fucking kidding me." Royle was incredulous, dropping alongside to dust himself off and nurse his cheek. "Where on criminy hill did he come from?"

"Croyden." grumbled Gene, feeling around his front and producing his last fag, squashed. The file was sitting on his desk under a half drunk glass of scotch.

"And he just happens to be right where we need him." Dabbing blood from his scabby cheek Royle tossed him a half gone packet. Gene took out his lighter. "Funny that."

"It's too early to be funny, Guv. That's not how policing works."

Hunt fell behind, stopping to cup the flame against the wind. _Oh if only you knew, my boy. If only you knew._


	3. III

**_I apologize for the delay. Thank you very kindly for your reviews. They're all lovely. Please continue to tell me what you think! I love to hear your feedback - h._**

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**_III._**

Terrence Leach was a skinny little shit with a pencil mustache and a twitchy eye, nursing a bloody nose and a crusty hand kerchief, glaring holes in the paperwork set out in front of him by DI Royle. Gene watched on in mild interest, slouched in his seat with his hands folded over his chest.

"You've been a naughty boy, Terry."

"I didn't do it." He grumbled, sounding very much like a leaky pipe.

"Naughty boys don't run," Royle said matter-of-factly and kept fidgeting with the tape recorder and tapping his pen in a non-rhythm. "Bit of this, bit of that. Drugs. Fighting. Roughing up old ladies for pub money."

"I _didn't do it._"

"And we're just supposed to what, believe you?" Gene trumpeted, putting his fists on the table and pulling the file over. "Your mate Abbot is downstairs lying on a slab while what little brains he had are painting a shitty wall in Shadwell, and your greasy little fingerprints are all over his stuff."

"Guv—"

"I didn't—"

"Go on, say it one more time, son. I dare you." Terry gobbed like a fish for a moment, his big lips parsing together. "Where were you last night?"

"Out."

Gene sniffed, tossing one of the crime scene photos across the table. Terry flinched visibly, his hands starting to shake. Royle frowned but did nothing. "At the pub. Joe said we were celebrating."

"Celebrating what?"

"I don't know." He admitted, picking at the corner of the kerchief. It was fraying, blood from earlier trying in brown patches. It was the same color as the stain in his 'tashe. "I want a solicitor."

"I'm sure you do. Why were you celebrating?" a fountain of patience was Royle, more collected than Gene could fathom anyone being. He'd started writing with his little click pen, that small quirk on his lips he got when he was hiding something. Gene peeked over at the pad. Tic Tac Toe. _Jesus._ "Terry—"

"He's weird, okay? Joe was…Joe was a cracked sort, alright? Let's go to the pub, he says. Let's celebrate."

Gene vacated his seat, grabbing Terry by the scruff of the neck; he'd heard enough. "We've got a nice place for you to think up more half answers while you mull over your short lived running career Flash Gordon-"

"We've only got one cell open, Guv," reminded Royle casually, "Number 8."

"The one with the coke head?"

"The one that shit himself."

Terry's eye's bugged, arms waving. His bloody kerchief like a pansy's white flag. "No, no please!"

"Come on then, you little shite." He was a scrapper he was, wiry legs digging into the floor. Gene grunted as he pushed him forward. "Wait! _Wait!_ I'll tell you!"

Gene paused, hand clapped firmly on the back of his neck. "Joe was meeting with someone. Handed him a package."

"Who was he meeting with?" Royle had scratched out his game, bending back over the seat to rest his chin on his palm.

"I-don't know I—"

"Right." Another shove to the door.

"Joe _did _things, alright? Lots of things! Odd jobs. Drugs, fencing. You name it! I thought it were one of them!"

"So you went to the pub and he met with someone…"

"I went to get us a couple of pints and he'd just _left_."

"You don't mind if we go check that out then." Royle smiled when he stood, stacking his files together. "After all you're not going anywhere."

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Under the bright checkered lights of CID, the detectives looked up in time to see their boss haul a screaming Terrence Leach down the corridor towards the cells. Clutching his metal nameplate tighter, Stirling gulped and tugged at the collar of his shirt.

"You look like you're wearing your granddad's jacket." Said the woman in front of him, sounding utterly bored. She'd paused in the middle of her typing to give him a once over, one eyebrow raised. "Are you going to put that thing down, or what?"

"Oh? Oh." He put it down.

"Oi, Petra, don't give him such a hard time now." DS Garrett clapped one hand on his shoulder, shaking him. "He caught our man with those little legs of his."

"Hunt is furious."

"Nooo, _Ashley's_ furious. The Guv'll get over it." Turning on his heel Garrett sunk a dart into the board across the room. The detective at the adjacent desk swore, searching his pockets for cash. "He likes blokes that take the lead."

She rolled her eyes, gesturing again at the plate. "Not that desk, that's Rigley's. Yours is over there."

"Okay." Stirling moved passed a nervous looking young man to the empty desk, sitting on the edge of it. The woman had turned around again, her back to him, continuing her typing. Garrett, laughing as he collected his pittance winnings paid him no mind. "So—" Started Stirling, before the doors of CID were again jostled, Hunt billowing through like a midsummer storm.

"Winslow, tea. Six sugars if you'd be so kind. And _you_." A gloved hand was pointed at Stirling who froze, staring bug eyed at his new boss. "In my office." He didn't even wait for Stirling to follow, just walked into his little glass box and slammed the door.

The woman, Winslow, sighed and spun in her chair. "Don't keep him waiting. Rigely would you-" The nervous man jumped up to hand her a pair of crutches. She motioned for him to go first. "Chop chop."

Stirling knocked once before entering, one hand flying to adjust his hair. Hunt had already pulled out a bottle of scotch from one drawer, legs kicked up on the desk. "Quite and entrance you've made on my patch." He said after a moment, staring pointedly at the elbow patches on his jacket. "I don't like show offs."

"I wasn't trying to show off sir—er, Guv." Hunt frowned deeper at him, puffing his cheeks out as he chased the scotch around the bottle. "I'd just gotten lost."

"Lost?"

"Yeah. They'd told me you were out on assignment. Where to find you. I guess I'd taken a wrong turn, but that Lady Bird Detective set me right. It was an accident I ran into you, I swear."

"I don't believe in accidents," Hunt said. Stirling could feel his collar start to itch again. "But we've got work to do. The Super tells me this is your first week as a detective."

"Yes it is."

"Too many detectives in Croyden, then?"

"I don't know…there's a few, yeah." Giving in, he scratched at the back of his neck, pulling at the collar and skinny blue tie. They were out of place things. He missed his uniform. "I was told I was moving onto bigger and brighter things and shipped out. I just go where I'm needed."

Hunt said nothing. Sipped his scotch. Outside Garrett was jeering again above risen complaints that he was clearly cheating. Stirling shifted at the knock on the door, as the guv motioned for the person to enter. Winslow, crutch in one hand, mug in the other. "Tea, six sugars. And Wakefield called up. He's got something for you."

"Thanks, luv." Kicking his feet off the desk, Hunt grabbed for his coat. "Come with me, Golden Boy."

Stirling followed him out, hands shoved in his pockets, stopping short when Hunt paused at Winslow's desk. "Petra, the next time someone calls and asks for directions, just tell them to wait in the lobby."

She frowned looking up at them, shrugging her shoulders. "_What_?"

"Guv!" Said the severe looking man with the bruised cheek. "I'm taking Garrett back to Harrow Hill."

"Fine." Was Hunt's reply as he held the door open, Stirling skipping a bit as he walked through. "Going to give our new Detective Constable the tour."

"I thought you were going to the morgue." Royle frowned.

"Exactly."

Stirling didn't like the sound of laughter from CID following them down the corridor to the lifts.


End file.
